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Tuesday, March 08, 2011

Question from Meg - Advice for paper on influence of Henry's wives

I am currently a 3rd year history student writing a dissertation on the importance of Henry VIII's wives. My current title is "How far were the wives of Henry VIII able to excercise their influence over the royal Court". However, I feel that this is quite weak and would like to improve it. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can do this?

[This is a follow-up from Meg's question from last year, linked below. - Lara]

2 comments:

Religious influence, as suggested, is the most obvious way, but that is a very broad subject.

Otherwise you might focus on how the wives ordered the royal household - that would involve diplomacy and pecking orders.

An oblique approach might be through Katherine Parr's experience as queen dowager after Henry's death, when she married the brother of Edward's protector. The spat she had with the protector's wife is catty and amusing, all influenced by Henry's legacy.

HIIm also a third year history student doing my dissertation on the tudors, i have chosen to focus on Katherine Parr and Women in the Reformation. I think that within any tudor area it is going to be very broad what you talk about but you might want to try and confine yourself to one or two examples of his wives, perhaps one Catholic and one Protestant?